


The Height of Respect Over the Weight of Intimidation

by ElCapitan18



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-23
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-04-16 19:47:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4637991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElCapitan18/pseuds/ElCapitan18
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cullen and Delani discuss their height differences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Height of Respect Over the Weight of Intimidation

“What in the Maker’s name are you doing?” Cullen asked, breath stolen by the surprise growing in his chest as he strode into her private chambers.

At the far end of the room Delani was balancing precariously on the narrow frame of her desk chair. She had a book grasped between her teeth and another tucked under her arm as she searched the top shelf of the book case behind her desk. Throwing a glance over her shoulder at the sound of his voice, she gave him a narrowed look and a muffled explanation that he uncertainly interpreted as, “ _What does it look like I’m doing?”_ But there was no way for him to know for sure.

Crossing her chambers to stand beside her, Cullen stared up at the curious Dalish woman in wonder. Her auburn hair caught the daylight streaming in through the stained glass windows and shown like bloodied silk. Bronze skin glowed with a healthy radiance and was dusted with a nearly indiscernible scattering of freckles. The crimson branches of her _vallaslin_ brought out the breath-stealing coloration of her sea green eyes that always seemed to flash with laughter and mischief. His heartbeat picked up at the sight of her and his stomach flipped in that way it always did when he caught the smell of her wildflower scent in his nose.

Cullen forcefully blinked himself back into focus and felt his features start to flush at how he had been openly ogling the Herald of Andraste. When his hand reached up to rub away the heat burning the back of his neck, the gesture was a subconscious reaction to the embarrassment he now felt. Clearing away the sudden accumulation of nerves in his throat, Cullen finally managed to find his voice.

“Were you in need of assistance, Lady Lavellan?”

Delani looked back down at him and her eyes glittered with delight. She motioned that her hands were preoccupied with the task of searching her bookcase and jutted her face over her shoulder. It took a moment for Cullen to realize what it was she wanted from him. His heartbeat turned anxious and blood rushed his features as he reached up and carefully pulled the book from between her teeth.

As soon as she relinquished the book to Cullen the Inquisitor immediately corrected him with a grin. “ _Delani_ , Commander. My parents went through a great deal of trouble to find me the perfect name. I would appreciate it if you would use it.”

 _Your parents were wise in their selection_ , he wanted to say, but instead dropped his gaze to the book he now held in his hands. He turned it over and quickly read the title, _Tale of the Champion_ , and fought to keep his eyes from rolling. Varric must have made a fortune publishing this title. Cullen had already lost count of how many copies he’d encountered since Kirkwall. 

Peering back up at Delani, he drummed on the book’s cover with his fingers and returned to his initial investigation. “Were you looking for something in particular, Your Worship?”

The sigh that escaped Delani was unsurprised, even as she dropped her head and shook it with disappointment. When she refocused her gaze on Cullen it was with a grin on her lips and without any further acknowledgement of his deliberate avoidance of using her name. She nodded once before voicing her answer.

“A book,” she said, her thick auburn eyebrows bouncing with devilry. 

A laugh started to grow in his throat and managed to pull his lips into a smile. “Well,” he replied, “You started in the right place.”

The sound of her responding snicker made his heart jump in his chest. “I thought so too,” she stated, her voice still bright with amusement, before returning to her search. 

For a second Cullen could only watch as she searched, transfixed by her determination driven by curiosity to find this mystery title. He shook himself back into the conversation when he realized that his attention had fallen to the round shape of her rear as she wriggled to reach the top shelf.

Coughing into his hand while scratching the back of his head with the other, Cullen scolded himself for his wandering gaze. “What book were you searching for?” asked Cullen before suggesting, “Perhaps I can help you find it.”

“It’s pertaining to Dalish legends,” Delani explained as she removed the book from under her arm and handed it down to Cullen. While he set it and the Tale of the Champion aside on her desk, she continued to explain, “Leliana said that she’d stored it in my chambers but everything I can find in this ‘collection’ is Chantry related.”

With a quick glance at Cullen, she added, “I’m sure you can understand why that’s the opposite of what I’m looking for.”

Instead of answering, Cullen took a step closer to her bookcase and scanned through its shelves. From what little he’d picked up from Lady Lavellan about the Dalish, he knew that anything text related was rare and almost held sacred to her people. If Leliana had found something she should have handed it to the Inquisitor in person. 

Eye level with the second to last shelf of the book case, Cullen quickly found a book that was in poorer condition than the rest. Its greenish cover was frayed and the corners were rounded by years of misuse. Gingerly removing the book from its hiding pace, he turned over to see the cover and found that it was aptly named, ‘Elven Lore and Legends’. 

“Is this what you were looking for, Lady Inquisitor?” wondered Cullen with a muted sense of self satisfaction in being able to find what she could not. 

A surprised expression widened Delani’s features as she momentarily gaped at the book he was holding up in offering. When the surprise was gone from her features a grin took its place and she carefully accepted the book from his hand. “You found it,” she said, the words riding the currents of her exhale. 

When she inspected the book more closely the excitement faded from her eyes and was replaced by disappointment. The sigh that parted her lips was disheartened. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“Surprised by what?” Cullen already missed the happiness he’d momentarily coerced into her sea green eyes.

Delani tossed the book over her shoulder with careless disinterest and answered, “That it’s useless,” before jumping off of the back of her desk chair and landing on her feet in front of him. 

Shocked that after all of that effort she had discarded the book so easily, Cullen continued with his line of questioning. “Useless how?”

The Dalish woman appeared to notice his disbelief and gave him a reassuring smirk, accompanied by a comforting pat to his shoulder. “It’s written by a human,” she stated with a shrug. “How much can a human truly know about the lore and legends of the people they’ve oppressed?”

It was a question to which Cullen had no answer, so instead he simply held Delani’s gaze and hoped that she would someday see him as more than another human. 

“At any rate,” she said, clapping her hands clean as though washing them of the fruitless search. The smile she spared Cullen was breathtaking in its beauty. “Thank you for your help, Commander. How did you find it so quickly, anyway? I’ve been searching for that useless book for nearly an hour.”

Cullen shrugged. He glanced at the shelf where he had spotted the book and noted that it wasn’t as though it had been purposefully hidden from view. Averting his gaze back onto Delani, he provided, “It was right it plain sight,” and gestured to the place where he had pulled it from.

Glancing over her shoulder to see the high shelf where her book had been nuzzled, Delani muttered, “Plain sight for you maybe,” and looked back up at Cullen with laughter in her sea green eyes. She gave him a once over that started at his booted feet and travelled up until she was holding his gaze again. “With those long human legs I bet not much is out of sight.”

His attention fell so that he could properly take in the size of her, and Cullen felt his stomach flutter with a warmth that was equal measure admiration and desire. This was not the first time he had noticed just how tiny she was, how dainty and ethereal she was in appearance. Sometimes he was just reminded that Delani was a wisp of a thing that he felt an instinctual obligation to protect. The top of her head didn’t even reach the middle of his chest if she stood on the very tips of her toes. For all of her shapely curves and well defined musculature, she still had a lean frame that effectively disguised her physical strength behind her feminine shape. 

Delani might have looked fragile, delicate, and insubstantial, but in her chest burned the heart of a mighty Dalish huntress. He had seen her in action enough times to know better than think that she was a woman who could not take care of herself. She did not need protection, but that knowledge did little to stifle his desire to provide it anyway. It did not mean that he couldn’t tease her a bit. After all the teasing she did to him, it only seemed fair.

A smile coiled the corner of his mouth, and Cullen folded his arms over his breastplate. “I am likely only a bit above average in height, my lady.” His smirk grew as he regarded the gorgeous elven woman. “I suppose it would be difficult for you to tell, considering how short you are yourself.”

Her jaw fell open with insult, although the growing approval in her eyes betrayed how delighted she was by his jab. Snapping her mouth shut again, her eyes narrowed into slits and she took a step toward him to leer up at Cullen. There was a purse to her lips as she sized him up, and her hands were on her hips as though she were trying to intimidate him into believing she was taller than she actually was. 

“I’m not short,” she argued, her glittering eyes alight with mischief and her lips curling into a smile. It was a lie and she knew it, it was not even a good one.

A single eyebrow shot up in response before he commented, “You’re barely any taller than Varric.”

“And Varric is _very_ tall for a dwarf,” she insisted as she struggled to keep her smile from getting any larger. Moving her hands until she had her arms crossed in front of her chest in a mirror of him, she tapped her fingers on her biceps and stated, “I will have you know that word among the clans is that I am at least a hand taller than Serai Mahariel.”

The bark of laughter that escaped him then was unbidden, and Cullen shook his head in attempt to rein in his amusement. “I’ve met the Hero of Ferelden,” he observed before assuring her, “and being taller than her is hardly difficult.” His shoulders jumped when her eyes widened with mock-insult to his words. 

“Besides,” he continued. “Lady Mahariel always had this presence about her that made everyone forget how small she was.”

Delani’s eyes narrowed into pin pricks and playfully, teasingly, scrunched up her features. “Oh,” she drawled out. “So _that’s_ the problem. You find Warden Mahariel intimidating and, by comparison, I come up short.”

His smirk grew at her play on words. Curious, Cullen wondered, “Do you want me to be intimidated by you, Inquisitor Lavellan?”

She opened her mouth to reply, only to snap it shut when she thought better of it. For a moment all they did was stare at one another, tension starting to fill the air as they waited on her answer. Delani twisted her lips as she considered her response. 

With a shrug, she said, “I suppose not, Commander.” She drummed her fingers on her arms again, and held his gaze as she continued. “I suppose I’d rather have your respect.”

At the mention of respect, Cullen straightened his stance and returned his hands to his sides. With a dip of his head, he assured her, “It is yours, Lady Inquisitor.”

Her smile fell a bit and a heavy sigh blew through her nose. “Delani, Cullen. It’s less of a mouthful.” 

Cullen opened his mouth to reply, but his words were cut off by the sound of a loud rapping on the Inquisitor’s door. When she shouted for their interjector to come in it was to discover that they were both being summoned to the war room. Their conversation and easy banter were forgotten in the wake of duty. 

“We should not keep the others waiting,” Cullen stated, disappointed that the moment with Delani had to come to an end. “You know how Josephine gets when there is work to be done.”

Her smile returned and she gestured for Cullen to follow her from her chambers. “Excitable,” she supplied and they both shared a smile at the Ambassador’s expense. As they strode down the stairs out of her quarters and toward the main hall, Delani wondered, “What did you come to my chambers to discuss, Commander.” 

Giving the beautiful elven woman a sideways glance, he admitted, “I cannot remember,” and marveled at how she always managed to clear his mind until there was room in it only for her.


End file.
